Cagle nearing end of stellar run as Pilot Point leader

Before
Tuesday’s practice in a gym filled with colorful banners and softball players
in black, Pilot Point senior Skylar Cagle looked over the rows of players
seated on the hardwood.

The
downpour outside may have created a lake in front of the school and washed away
outdoor practice, but on this day and all other days, Cagle assumed her duty of
checking roll before practice began.

It’s the consistency
of the task that marks Cagle’s time at Pilot Point — time that will conclude
whenever Pilot Point’s season ends and she moves on to pitch at Northwestern
State in Louisiana.

If Cagle
keeps pitching the way she has been all season, that time may not be this
weekend when the Lady Cats (37-2) face Brock in the best-of-three Class 2A
Region II finals. The first game is at 7 tonight at Saginaw Chisholm Trail,
with Game 2 on Friday and a potential Game 3 planned for Saturday at the same
location.

Pilot
Point coach James Ramsey said he’s never had somebody as consistent as Cagle
for four straight years.

“I’ve had
some good ones, but there’s usually been some off years and some good years,
but she’s been pretty consistent,” Ramsey said.

Her
statistics from this season not only attest to her consistency but to her
dominance in Pilot Point’s first year back down in Class 2A.

Cagle has
a record of 24-0 with an earned run average of 0.79. But the statistic she
known for — the number that best tallies her dominance — is the 221 strikeouts
she’s piled up this season.

With glitter and eyeblack smeared on her cheeks, Cagle pitched a
no-hitter against Commerce last weekend and struck out 22 batters over the
course of the two-game sweep. The series victory propelled the Lady Cats one
round further than they went last season.

This
year, she has struck out a little better than one out of every three batters
she has faced. Ramsey said her strikeout total is lower than it was during her
freshman and sophomore years because she wasn’t splitting time in the circle
back then.

“She
definitely did not play like a freshman,” Ramsey said. “Everybody I think was
kind of blown away by the success she had early. I mean, she’s had some
struggles, but she’s had a lot of success.”

When she
was younger, her father, John Cagle, put her in a bunch of sports. One of her
father’s friends suggested that Skylar take some pitching lessons when she was
about 9.

She got
more serious about softball, and her pursuit of perfection began.

“She
loved it, and we would have to make her take breaks in summer and winter,” John
Cagle said. “She just didn’t want to quit. We didn’t really ever push her.
That’s just what she really wanted to do. She loved it.”

Both her
head coach and her father commented on Cagle’s work ethic. Cagle drug her
father back to the family’s storage barn to work on pitching. John Cagle built
a batting cage at the end of the barn to work on her swing.

“She
pretty much wanted to pitch every day and practice pitching,” John Cagle said.
“There were several nights I wasn’t up to it and she dragged me out there. We
spent several nights up at the barn.”

Cagle has
a team-high batting average of .612 and is second on the team in home runs
(five) and RBIs (37).

“A lot of
kids say they want to be better but they don’t really put in the time, and she
does,” Ramsey said.

No matter
how much time she’s put in and how much she’s improved, the nerves she carried
onto the field as a freshman have stuck with her at the end of her senior year.

Cagle
remembers the nerves she had for her first playoff contest against Burkburnett,
a game Pilot Point won easily. She can’t remember how many strikeouts she piled
up.

She said
she enjoys it when Ramsey chooses to be the visitor to start a series because
it calms her nerves. The nerves have subsided since her freshman year, but they
still linger before starts.

“There
were times when she was really nervous, and she still gets nervous,” Ramsey
said. “It’s just different than playing select ball.”

When
Cagle steps into the circle before each inning, she kneels, swipes a cross into
the dirt and prays. Some prayers are longer than others, depending on the
score, the inning or what she’s worried about.

Cagle
said that she’s gotten better about reeling in nerves that stem from the weight
of pitching for her team, her coaches and her town.

“I’ve
gotten better controlling them, but I think it’s just the fact that you’re
playing for something so big,” Cagle said.

Sophomore
pitcher Preslee Galloway, who’s a solid pitcher in her own right, said Cagle
has helped her transition to the circle and has been a great leader and role
model.

“It was hard at first, just me being a freshman,” Galloway said. “And
then she helped me be confident in myself. If she was at shortstop, she’d say, ‘Come
on, you got this!’ Even though she was at [shortstop], she wouldn’t be
standoffish. She’d be helping me. And that just made me feel more confident,
saying I got this.”

After
this season, the circle will be Galloway’s to preside over. Ramsey will lose
his best hitter, his best pitcher and a player he’s grown to trust over four
consistently strong seasons.

“I look
at her almost like my daughter,” Ramsey said.” I’m looking forward to seeing
her play at the next level, and hopefully she’ll do well. And I know she’ll do
well and move on in whatever avenue she chooses later on in life.”

BEN BABY can be reached at 940-566-6869 and
via Twitter at @Ben_Baby.

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